


remember me after six

by auralure



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, M/M, Memory Related, Time Loop, a lot of confusion, based on the seonghwa prompt from the storyline event, coffee shop au kinda, insecure seonghwa, the seongjoong is very light but theres a lot more stuff implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:34:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25210042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auralure/pseuds/auralure
Summary: “Yeah, sorry, I’m just…” Seonghwa exhales harshly, feeling a little overwhelmed and frustrated for reasons he doesn’t understand. “Do you ever get that feeling of knowing someone, except you know that you don’t?”
Relationships: Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	remember me after six

**Author's Note:**

> i reworked my entry for the ateez storyline event to fit seongjoong a little and post it on here since a lot of people couldn't access the site 
> 
> based on seonghwa's prompt:  
> "Everyone left, but only her scent remains. No name or address to be know. As if i was dreaming within my own dream, it all faded away."

When Seonghwa wakes up, it’s with the belated regret of promising to get up extra early this week to make the best of his days off. But he gets up anyways, because days off are rare, and he’s been waiting for time to open up and make room for his writing. He’s been set on putting together his own poetry book for almost two months now, and while it isn’t anything he’d consider sharing with anyone yet, he hopes one day he’ll be able to muster up the courage to show it to others.

For now, Seonghwa decides a trip to a nearby café is his best bet at finding some inspiration. As nice as his hotel room is, it doesn’t give off the same kind of creative influence as coffee shops do. Or maybe that’s what his coffee-obsessed mind tells him to support his cravings.

Thankfully, there’s a café just a block away from his hotel, so Seonghwa makes his way there on foot. It’s a lot nicer than the ones back in his hometown, and a lot more spacious and spread out, which makes it perfect for even just a small sense of privacy. When he reaches the counter, there’s a boy with vibrant blue hair behind the cash register. Seonghwa can’t help but note that his eyes are pretty. There’s something intense behind them, something that flickers like a flame. Something inspiring.

“Hi, what can I get you?”

Seonghwa orders his usual drink, surveying the store for an individual table to sit at while he waits. It isn’t too busy, which he’s thankful for, but many people prefer corner tables just like him, so there’s a bit of restlessness in his sway as he waits for a corner table to free up.

“A vanilla iced coffee for Seonghwa!”

A spot at the very front of the store next to the window opens up just after he grabs his drink, and Seonghwa hurries towards it, plopping down on the comfortable booth seat. It’s surprisingly easy for ideas to flow today. He’s not sure if it’s because of the change in scenery or just the fact that he’s less sleep deprived than usual, but either way it works in his favor and that’s all he needs.

This definitely isn’t homework in any way, but he still finds it a habit to write the date on the top of the page every time he writes something. After scribbling a quick _October 24_ , he gets to work.

About an hour into writing, there’s a rowdy group on the other side of the café, distracting him from his work. He tries not to pay any mind to them, partly because he believes the ‘out of sight (them being on the other side of the wall), out of mind’ phrase will apply itself eventually. But after a few more minutes of non-stop arguing, he decides it’s time to find inspiration elsewhere.

Before he leaves, he returns to the counter and asks the blue-haired employee for a bag of chocolate cookies to go. The last thing he hears as he steps out of the shop is a very loud _“I never said that, Jongho, stop lying!”_ and then the yelling finally stops passed the door.

\--

The first thing Seonghwa sees when he walks into the coffee shop for the first time is a head of bright blue. It kind of clashes with his orange apron, but Seonghwa reminds himself that he’s here for the coffee, not to observe and make comments about people.

“Can I get a large vanilla iced coffee?”

He stays at the shop for just a little over an hour, and then relocates to the beach just across his hotel when a group of boys get a little too loud for his liking. He lays down his towel on the sand and gets comfortable, opening up his journal and the bag of chocolate cookies next to him, snacking as he reads over what he’d written down at the coffee shop.

It’s not that Seonghwa had initially meant for his poetry book to be filled to the cover to cover with sad pieces, but it seems like that’s all he can ever write nowadays. There hadn’t really been any standout events that caused his writing to steer in this direction. He’s just always felt that sad things are more impactful, so he ended up building his book around that.

In any case, he’s definitely made more progress than he had even hoped to today, especially for it only being a few minutes before noon. He checks his phone for the date he’d written as his anticipated deadline. _October 30._ It’s cutting close, not that it really even matters because no one is going to see it anyways, but Seonghwa likes having deadlines to keep himself working and consistent. He barely gets to have time to himself like this, so six days doesn’t feel as pressuring as it usually would. 

If the next six days are going to be anything like today, he figures he’ll have this book finished in no time.

\--

“A vanilla iced coffee for Seonghwa!”

The window seat Seonghwa had been eyeing frees up immediately upon getting his drink from the blue-haired employee, and he speeds to it despite no one else entering the shop to possibly take it instead.

He opens up his journal to the next empty page, and writes the date on top.

_October 24._

It’s a peaceful hour of continuous flowing creative juices, until a group on the other side of the café decide to make this place some sort of sports bar during a big game. He lasts all of 5 minutes before deciding to grab a bag of chocolate cookies to go and find somewhere else to write.

\--

_Why nine?_

Seonghwa thinks immediately upon being woken up by his alarm. 9AM is barely early, when he considers how he usually gets up 5:30 to get ready for work. But on days off, 9AM somehow feels like 4AM and Seonghwa kind of hates how dedicated he is to starting this stupid poetry book.

The café he finds is walking distance from his hotel, which is pretty convenient as he’d hoped to spend as little as he can on gas money for this trip. The girl behind the register waits patiently as Seonghwa decides on a drink, ultimately settling with his usual because he feels more comfortable sticking to what he knows.

While he’s waiting for his coffee on the side, his eyes scan over the rest of the shop for a place to sit. Something about the place feels familiar. The fairy lights, the peach-colored chairs, somehow he feels like he’s been here before. Maybe it’s similar to a store in his hometown, he can’t remember.

“A vanilla iced coffee for Seonghwa.” The girl calls out, sliding his drink over. As he reaches out to grab it, the girl pulls it back with an apology. “Sorry, let me just wipe off the side here.”

Seonghwa elbows his bag over as his arm retreats, knocking his journal open onto the counter. The rag that the girl uses to clean up the side of the cup sends off a few droplets of coffee across the counter in the rush to give him his drink. It splatters two small beads of coffee onto the open page of his journal.

“Oh! I’m so sorry.” She says, looking unsure of what to do.

“Don’t worry, it’s no problem. Thank you.” Seonghwa assures her, grabbing a napkin to dab at the drops.

Seonghwa picks the journal up, looking over the page it’s opened up to. He moves to sit at a nearby table before reading it, having completely forgotten about this piece. It’s titled ‘lost stars’, in some of the earliest pages of the book. Seonghwa’s eyes float up to the date on the top-right corner, _October 24, 2018_. It was written a year ago from today, he notes.

> _I whispered secrets to any light that flickered in my direction._
> 
> _I needed someone to listen, so I forced everyone to._
> 
> _They stuck around to be nice, because that was their job,_
> 
> _to stay._
> 
> _But I brought bad luck everywhere I went, every surface I roamed. And none of them deserved to be followed by my monsters._
> 
> _Space had always been dark, it was only what it held that kept it glowing._
> 
> _So when I pushed everyone around me away, it was inevitable that the universe would go dull._
> 
> _I was always the dimmest star._
> 
> _Technically, I wasn’t lost; I’d never left, fear kept me right where I’d always been._
> 
> _But even then, I had no idea where I was, no clue where I’d wandered to without taking a single stride._
> 
> _My soul dressed in midnight and fluttered away from me._
> 
> _If you ever find me, can you tell me how I’ve been?_

Upon finishing, there’s a loud ringing in his ears. He drops the journal onto the table to cover his ears, hanging his head low to avoid any curious eyes. It doesn’t work though, because a voice makes its way past the ringing, “Are you okay?”

Seonghwa looks up with embarrassment at the blue-haired boy looking at him with worried eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

There are distant voices in his head, muffled arguing, loud laughter, flashes of blue and red. And then it all stops, suddenly, like whatever was connecting the area in his brain that contained all of the voices and flashes was snipped off with scissors.

Seonghwa decides that maybe it isn’t a good day to write in public, and heads back to his hotel room.

\--

“Hi, what can I get you?” The girl’s voice is immediately echoed by male voice, asking the same question. It causes him to pause for a brief moment, when he thinks he recognizes the second voice. Shaking the weird feeling off, he orders a vanilla iced coffee and scrolls idly through his phone as he waits.

“I never said that Jongho, stop lying!” A loud voice yells out from the far corner of the shop, where a group of boys are gathered at a table. There’s a boy with blue-hair standing next to their table, and upon seeing the bright color his vision goes blurry, a throbbing sensation in his head.

_“A vanilla iced coffee for Seonghwa!”_

“A vanilla iced coffee for Seonghwa!” The girl’s voice is louder than the boy’s voice that says it in his head, bringing him out of the quick-paced, movie-like scene that passes through his mind. 

“Sorry for that group of boys over there.” She says, probably after noticing his less-than-subtle staring. “They’re friends of my manager, so he kinda gives them a pass when they get loud.”

His eyes drift back over to the table. It’s him, Seonghwa thinks, the blue-haired employee is the one that had said it in his head. Does he know him? Has he taken Seonghwa’s order here before? It doesn’t make sense, this is the first time Seonghwa has even been to this city, let alone this café. But why does it feel like he’s seen him before?

There’s something about the boy that draws him in. The second Seonghwa had stepped into the shop, his eyes were on him. it was something that went past his glaring hair color. It’s like Seonghwa is built entirely out of iron and there’s a dozen magnets in blue boy’s apron pockets. And they're not like magnets he just recently bought from the store, they're like eight-year old magnets that have been stuck to Seonghwa's refrigerator, paint chipped and faded yet still strong enough to hold on.

He doesn’t know exactly what he’d just seen, or remembered, or imagined but he knows that it happened here. And something about it was too vivid to just be a random chunk of imagination.

Before his brain can keep up with his feet, Seonghwa finds himself walking towards the group of boys in the corner of the shop, mind riddled with questions.

The entire group turns to look at him when he stops at their table, giving him questioning looks. Seonghwa feels something weird wash over him the second he looks at all of them at a closer distance.

“Is there something wrong?” One of them asks.

Another boy across from him narrows his eyes at him, “You’re Seonghwa, right?”

Seonghwa gapes slightly, eyes widening. “How do you know my name?”

The boy (with an oddly placed green streak in his hair that Seonghwa can’t help but stare at) squirms in his seat, confusion on his face. “I… I don’t know..” He turns to the boy next to him, lowering his voice but still loud enough for Seonghwa to hear. “How did I know his name?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“Don’t be too freaked out.” A lower voice jumps in, seemingly amused at his shock. “He makes a lot of lucky guesses.”

Seonghwa doesn’t fully find comfort in that, feeling that all of this is too weird to be just accidental.

“Did you need something?” The blue-haired boy beside him asks. His voice is gentle, something about it makes him feel warm. 

Seonghwa contemplates for a second, then decides to voice out his thoughts. “Can I ask you a question? Have you taken my order before?”

The boy scrunches his nose, looking up in thought. “Um, I don’t know. Do you come here a lot?”

Seonghwa shakes his head, feeling more and more small. “No, this is my first time in this city, but…”

After the train of odd looks he gets from everyone at the table, he figures it might not have been a good time, or a good question at all. What was he thinking? Of course it’d be weird to just go up to someone and ask them if they remember you when it’s nearly impossible to have met them before.

“Uh, nevermind, sorry.” Seonghwa rushes out of the shop, letting the strange feeling fester for the rest of the day. 

\--

“Is everything alright?” The girl behind the counter asks him as she’s passing him his drink, having witnessed the sudden jerk in his body after a series of imagined conversations and laughter with people he doesn’t recognize had suddenly invaded his mind.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m just…” Seonghwa exhales harshly, feeling a little overwhelmed and frustrated for reasons he doesn’t understand. “Do you ever get that feeling of knowing someone, except you know that you don’t?”

It’s a completely out of the blue question, and it shows on her face. He’s about to apologize, but she surprise him by answering. “Yeah, it happens to me too.”

Seonghwa nods, not sure if the validation had done anything to calm him. Every time he glances at the group of people in the corner table, his head starts to hurt. But he can’t stop doing it either. The question marks are practically floating above all of their heads and Seonghwa wants to know why this is such a big deal, why he can’t let it go. All he wanted was to start his poetry book today, and instead, he’s being bombarded with dozens of what feels like memories that aren’t even his.

“Sometimes I take it as a sign.” The girl pipes up again. “Even if you don’t know them… maybe you should. Maybe you’d be better if you did.”

With that, she walks back to the register to take another order, and Seonghwa is back to eyeing the table. 

“Hi.” He’d taken strides before he even realized and spoke words before he even knew why and now he’s here, in front of them, wanting to see if there’s more to this familiarity. “Sorry, we don’t know each other, but you guys reminded me of people I know and it just interested me.”

“Oh, that’s cool!” One of them says, “They must be super fun then.”

“Wooyoung, don’t make us sound cocky.”

“That wasn’t even cocky, it was inviting! And playful!”

“Are you new here?” A boy with blonde hair asks him. It’s a friendlier tone than he’d predicted, for someone who’d just barged into a conversation unannounced and uninvited.

“Yeah, it’s my first time in this city. I just got here yesterday.”

“Has someone showed you around yet?” Another one joins in.

“No,” Seonghwa answers, rubbing the back of his neck when he starts to feel awkward. “I’m actually just on a short vacation so I don’t really know anyone.”

“Oh! I know what would be great for you then!” The evidently more cheery one raises his hand. “You could come down to the beach bonfire they’re holding tonight! It’s at the beach just down this street.”

Seonghwa is surprised at the sudden invitation. This is not what he was expecting. “Um, okay. I’ll think about it.”

He gets back to his hotel room later that night and contemplates going to the party. It started almost an hour ago, but Seonghwa still can’t make a choice. It would be weird to, and surely uncomfortable. He doesn’t know anyone here but those boys, and he’s not sure he’d feel very relaxed sliding himself into a group of friends he’d just met today, even if it’s just for one night.

His hands find his journal, hoping to flip to a page that’ll make the decision for him. He flips through the entire book a few times before stopping and pressing a finger to the poem he lands on. _Lost Stars._

It doesn’t really help him with an answer, so he turns to the next page, where there are only two sentences in the middle of the page.

_I don’t want to drag you all down with me, I don’t want any of you to have to pick up my broken pieces. I’m sorry for running away, but I’m scared to face you guys knowing I constantly disappoint you._

When Seonghwa shifts in his seat and lifts the book up, something falls from out of the book. He picks it up from the ground; it’s a small picture, a little bent and scratched. But he can see it clearly, it’s a group picture, with eight people. Seonghwa feels shivers ripple through his body at the sight of it. In the picture are the seven boys he’d seen at the café today, and himself.

He knew they felt familiar, he knew something about those flashes were too vivid to be fake. But seeing this, it’s puzzling and a little scary. How does a picture he doesn’t remember taking even exist? And with people he swore he’d never met before?

Even though he’d wanted to know what weird things were going on, this still don’t make sense. Is he in a dream? Or some weird alternate universe? There’s no way he wouldn’t remember seven whole people, people who seemed to be important to him. 

Taking this as his answer, Seonghwa grabs his phone and wallet from the table and makes his way out the door. As he exits the hotel, he sees one of the boys from the café just down the sidewalk. It’s the tall one with the faded red hair and he can’t remember his name so he tries to run to catch up to him.

But he never makes it, because he fades away, and the world turns white.

\--

_“You promised. You promised we’d go through everything together, no matter how hard it gets. Why do you keep running away?”_

Seonghwa wakes up with a groan, rolling onto his stomach to hit the off button on his alarm. He looks at his phone through his bleary vision.

 _9:00,_ _October 24_

It’s the first official day of his vacation, and the day he’d been determined to finally start writing. He only wishes that motivation would push itself back at least an hour or two, but the longer he stays in bed, the less chance he’ll get out of it. So he rolls himself off of the bed and searches up nearby coffee shops to hang out in.

“Can I get a large vanilla iced coffee?”

He doesn’t plan this at all, but somewhere between writing his book and grabbing chocolate cookies, he finds himself chatting with a group of seven strangers. He feels like he knows them, somehow. He’d initially gone to politely ask them to quiet down, but the closer he got, the warmer the feeling got. And he’d just felt the urge to continue a conversation.

“You could come to the beach bonfire they’re holding tonight! It’s at the beach just down this street.”

The party is pretty crowded, it takes Seonghwa a while to find the other boys. When he finally does, they’re seated on a cramped towel laid out on the sand, laughing and joking around. Seonghwa feels a bit awkward walking up to them, but one of them, who’d introduced himself earlier as San, waves him over enthusiastically.

“Seonghwa! You came!"

“Hey.” Hongjoong says quietly, but Seonghwa picks his voice out of the sea of many and smiles back. “You can sit next to me.” 

It turns out, getting settled into their already formed dynamic isn’t hard at all. They make Seonghwa feel comfortable instantly, they talk like they’ve known each other for years. Seonghwa can’t remember the last time he’d felt this relaxed, this happy. It’s the first time in a while he’s been able to loosen up.

Until the flashes start up again.

They’d happened back at the coffee shop earlier that morning. Voices infiltrating his head, colors and scents bringing back memories that feel like his own but can’t be. They come back again, and this time, he thinks he has answers.

All of this has happened before. Maybe not this part, the one where he’s at the beach with the other seven. But the events of this morning certainly have. He’d walked into the café feeling like he already knew it, already seen it before. And everything he did, from asking random questions to the barista, to impulsively walking up to a group of strangers. All of it has happened before, and more than once. 

Today has happened before, he’s sure of it. He vaguely recalls all of the days, but can’t for the life of him remember the nights.

But how?

And why?

“Hear me out and don’t call me crazy.” It’s a rocky start, but Seonghwa feels rushed to figure all of this out and he doesn’t have time to worry about weird looks. “I’m not sure why, but I think I’m in some sort of time loop, and I don’t think this place is real either.”

Jongho furrows his brows. “What are you talking about?”

“And I think I know you guys, like before today.” Seonghwa continues, trying not to trip over his words. “We… we’re friends. In real life.”

“In real life?” Yeosang repeats, trying to make sense of the mess of an explanation Seonghwa is giving them. To be fair, everything he’s throwing out happens only seconds after they come back to mind, so it’s not like he’s had any time to gather his thoughts in a coherent manner.

“Yes, in real life. As in, not in this dream world we’re in right now.” The pounding in Seonghwa’s head starts getting severe. He feels panicked, and he doesn't know why. It’s the uniforms in his mind that punch him in the gut, it’s the contagious laughter in his memories that send him right into the heart of an emotional whirlwind. “We met in high school and we clicked instantly and we hung out almost every day… and…”

It feels like there are chains and locks wrapped around his heart, and the more he remembers his friends, the harder his heart tries to break free from the constriction. It hurts. It hurts to remember. But the clearer they become, the more relieved he feels.

“We started a band…” Seonghwa says between shallow breaths. “We wanted to do everything together.”

“What was the name of the band?” Hongjoong questions. Seonghwa thinks he sees a flicker of recognition in his eyes. It gives him hope.

Seonghwa balls the towel underneath him into his fists, trying to push past the pain. “The name? It was… it…”

“What’s wrong?” Yunho asks with a worried voice. He grabs at his arm lightly, trying to keep him sitting upright.

Seonghwa takes in deeper breaths, shutting his eyes tightly. He thinks. He thinks, and thinks, and thinks, until the rush of thoughts overwhelm him so much that he nearly falls over. Yunho and San grab onto him, slowly pulling him back up. It’s the look in their eyes, the look of being home that uncovers it all. Seonghwa snaps his head up, everything coming back to him.

“The name.” A tear slips from his eyes. This is his family. “Our name is ATEE-”

Everything slows, and then comes to a complete stop. Everyone but Seonghwa. He looks around frantically, waiting for someone to move, needing them to help him break through the illusion. He _needs_ to get out of here, he needs to meet his friends in the real world and keep his promise.

He doesn’t want to be alone anymore.

“No-Wait! Please!”

And then everything goes white, and the day disappears.

\--

_“I’m sorry for leaving even after I asked you to stay. I’m sorry for walking away after you told me you loved me. I didn’t think you could ever love someone like me, I didn’t want you to. You deserved so much more.”_

Seonghwa is woken up by the trickle of sunlight peeking through the curtains. Day one of his vacation and he already wants to throw in the motivation towel and stay in bed forever. But as if on cue, his journal falls off of the desk across from him, signalling for him to get up and work.

He drags himself to the desk, picking the journal up off of the floor. It’s opened up to an old piece he’d written a while back, exactly a year from today.

Before he can even finish reading, the faint smell of coffee lingers in the air. He looks around the room for any signs of coffee, until he notices two small stains in the upper corner of the journal entry right above the date. There are coffee stains, probably left behind from when he’d had a drink while writing this. But it’s odd, how strong the smells is for a stain that was probably made an entire year ago.

The thought quickly fades, replaced by the urge to get coffee for himself right now. He gets ready and heads out with his journal, hoping for a productive day.

When he enters the café, the first thing that catches his eye is the vibrant blue-hair of the employee behind the register taking his order. His eyes are pretty, Seonghwa thinks, meant to see more than one-time, forgettable customers like him. 

“Hi, what can I get you?”

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/joongofficial) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/hwaslove)
> 
> thanks for reading!
> 
> \- rina


End file.
